Cruz rolls out first campaign ad over Easter weekend

Easter spot appearing in early primary states

By Kevin Diaz, Washington Bureau

April 3, 2015Updated: April 3, 2015 9:12pm

Photo: Nati Harnik, STF / Associated Press

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Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sits in the front row as he waits to be introduced at a town hall event at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) less

Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sits in the front row as he waits to be introduced at a town hall event at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Nati ... more

Photo: Nati Harnik, STF / Associated Press

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MERRIMACK, NH - MARCH 27: U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks at a Conservative Business League of New Hampshire Rally March 27, 2015 in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Cruz is the first politician to have officially announced his run for president in the upcoming election. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images) less

MERRIMACK, NH - MARCH 27: U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks at a Conservative Business League of New Hampshire Rally March 27, 2015 in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Cruz is the first politician to have officially ... more

Photo: Darren McCollester, Stringer / Getty Images

Cruz rolls out first campaign ad over Easter weekend

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WASHINGTON — Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, first to announce for the presidency in 2016, will also be the first major candidate to hit the airwaves, with a religiously themed television ad for the Easter weekend.

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The 30-second spot, called “Blessing,” is based on the senator’s family history of abandonment by a father who was later evangelized and then came back to the fold.

“Were it not for the transformative love of Jesus Christ,” Cruz says in the ad, “I would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the household.”

The early ad buy, 10 months before any voters go to the polls, defies conventional campaign wisdom and has garnered media attention far beyond the expected reach of its modest $37,000 cost.

“The Cruz campaign is going to continue to do things that are unexpected,” national campaign spokesman Rick Tyler said.

The surprise ad, which even the campaign called unexpected, will appear in four early primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

The spot is also scheduled to air on the Fox News Channel during “Killing Jesus,” a program based upon the best-selling book by television host Bill O’Reilly. The documentary ran on Good Friday and will air again Easter Sunday. The ad is scheduled to appear twice in each airing.

Part of the script comes straight from Cruz’s March 23 campaign rollout speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he called on the “power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America.”

The ad features footage of that announcement, made in a 10,000-seat arena filled with cheering students attending a mandatory convocation at the Christian university founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

The Liberty announcement made use of a devotional story Cruz is fond of telling about his Cuban immigrant father, Rafael Cruz, now an evangelical minister. In Cruz’s telling, his parents lived a fast life during his infancy, and his father abandoned the family when Cruz was 3 years old. Only a subsequent religious awakening brought his father back, a reunion Cruz ascribes to the “transformative” power of Christ.

The ad montage also lingers on gauzy images of children praying, including the Cruz family saying grace at the dinner table.

The Liberty rollout, like the new national television buy, signals Cruz’s strategy of homing in on religious conservatives, an important GOP constituency in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses next January.

Cruz is scheduled to be back in Iowa on Thursday, speaking to an influential group of Christian home-school parents.

The strategy appears to be paying off in the early going, with the campaign touting $4 million in fundraising in its first two weeks, much of it in small-dollar contributions. The campaign also has been buoyed by national polls showing Cruz surging among GOP primary voters.